


Nightmares

by rangerofdiscord



Series: Chasing After You - A Series of Allison/Leonard Drabbles [7]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Chex - Freeform, F/M, Some Fluff, Some angst, allison/leonard, slowly moving into AU territory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 04:47:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10586736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerofdiscord/pseuds/rangerofdiscord
Summary: Each time Allison comes back from a deployment, her nightmares get worse and worse. At what point does it become too much?





	

Leonard could tell it was one of those nights. One where he was better off staying up, reading a book or studying for a test. There was no way he was going to get any sleep, so what was the point in wasting time in which he could learn? 

Barely an hour after they had gone to bed, Allison had woken him up with her thrashing and shouting. Her body was covered in a cold sweat, muscles tense and if it weren’t for the fact that she couldn’t stop crying, he could have heard her heart racing. 

There was no point in waking her. If it was a bad night, she’d continue to panic in her sleep no matter how many times he woke her up to reassure her. It was a more intense form of PTSD, her therapist had said. A newer one that UNSC psychologists were struggling to understand. Somehow there was something more terrifying about fighting the Covenant than Insurrectionists. Almost every soldier who came back from deployment came back with some sort of PTSD surrounding the Covenant, and Allison had it worse than most. 

She never told him what happened on her deployments. Only that it was bad, the stuff of nightmares. Weapons and technology more advanced than she had seen, and deadlier too. Fellow soldiers dying in her arms, or being torn to bits in front of her with nothing she could do about it. And everytime she came home, he could tell that a part of her had died on the battlefield. 

Still she kept up appearances. Was ever the bright and cheery mother to Natalie, did her best to help around the house and stay present. But there was something in the way she looked, during her downtimes, that scared Leonard. 

He had noticed it after her second deployment. Natalie was napping, and Leonard had gone downstairs to get a snack while doing his homework. Allison was curled up in a ball in her hidey-corner, her vinyl player hissing over and over again and she didn’t notice. She was too busy watching the dark, blue-green underbelly of a summer storm roll up from the west. 

At least, that’s what he thought she was looking at. But as he got closer, he noticed her glazed eyes and tense muscles, and realized that his wife wasn’t really there. She was somewhere else, somewhere off-planet and far away. Somewhere she might never truly leave. 

With therapy, and his support, there were times she got better. But at night there was nothing he could do to help her, no way to stop the nightmares from coming. All he could do was hope that one day they might go away for good.

Suddenly, before Leonard knew it, Allison was awake. She shot up out of bed, those startling steel-blue eyes wide open, as she screamed like a banshee. Her hands grabbed the sheets of their bed, veins and muscles bulging from the stress. After a few blood-curling seconds the scream died in her throat, fat tears rolling from her eyes as she fell back down onto the bed. 

Leonard watched all of this go on in horror and fear, a sinking feeling in his gut as suddenly their four year old began crying hysterically in the next room over. He had a decision to make, comfort his wife or comfort their crying toddler. 

Luckily Allison made the decision for him. Through soft pants, and without looking at him, she muttered, “Better go comfort the kid.” 

“Are you okay?” He asked, getting up slowly, always watching her. 

She closed her eyes briefly, shaking her head. “I don’t fuckin’ know Leonerd, I just know that my daughter is crying and I want to hold her.” 

Nodding, he went out into the warmer hallway, quickly walking down the hallway to the smaller bedroom where Natalie slept each night. Opening the door and flicking on the light, he cooed softly to the poor toddler, who raised her arms up for him. 

Scooping her up into his arms, he grunted and shifted her weight. She was getting so big so quickly, soon he wouldn’t be able to pick her up at all. “Hush sweetheart, it’s alright.” 

Through soft sobs, the girl wiped her face and buried her head into his shoulder. Sighing softly, Leonard tilted his head to touch hers gently, rubbing her back as he brought her back into his and Allison’s room. 

His wife was sitting up in bed, sipping on some water when he came back in with their daughter. Her face was tired, dark circles under her eyes that looked almost lifeless. But she held her arms out for her daughter nonetheless, and Leonard sat on the bed next to her. Gently, she wrapped her arms around both of them, sighing softly. 

Slowly, Natalie’s sobs subsided. The toddler was still awake, but he could hear her breathing even out bit by bit. “How bad was it?” 

“What?” 

“The nightmare. The way you were screaming…”

“Oh.” Lying back down, with Natalie still in her arms, the young blonde woman shook her head. “It was just a bad memory. Or rather, a bunch of bad memories mixed together.” Through the blue lights of Leonard’s computer, he could see Allison’s brows knit together in frustration, rough pink lips pursed together. “I can’t really remember, which is a good thing.” 

Frowning, Leonard move to lay with her, an arm wrapping around her side. “Don’t lie to me, Bethany Allison Church.” 

“I’m not lying. I can’t… I can’t fuckin’ remember I just know it was bad, and I was scared and I wanted to get out so I woke up.” Her voice was thick with frustration, a hint of a southern accent like his making it’s way from her lips, but it disappeared as quickly as it came. “Honest.” 

“They’re getting worse.” Leonard commented gently, his hand moving from her waist up to her cheek. One long, rough scar started at the bridge of her nose and went down past her ear. It was long and ugly, cutting through the patches of freckles along her cheekbones. “Each time you come back, you come back with more and more scars. Not all of them physical.” 

“Every time we think we know the Covenant, they get worse and worse. I never believed in God, you know that. Not after my father… But the shit I’ve seen makes me believe in Hell, Leonard. All of the briefings, the stories you hear… Nothing can prepare you for the shit you see on the battlefield.” 

“During the mission briefings it’s all ‘Here’s how to beat ‘em, it’s so simple and easy you just gotta do what we say!’ Then you get out there, and those fuckin’ monsters run up to you with plasma grenades, screaming and they cloak themselves and try to stab you in the back and then they let out their behemoths and…” 

Her voice trailed off and she looked up at the ceiling. Her hand still rested on Natalie’s back, holding the young girl close. “I miss the old days, when I was dragging your ass through fire running away from other humans.”

Laughing, Leonard let out a sigh and closed his eyes, resting back against the pillow. “You know, I could always get you pregnant again. Then you wouldn’t have to go out there and fight anymore.”

“Gross, no thanks. One kid destroying my body was enough, thanks.” 

“I think Natalie would be happy to have a sibling.” 

“We can schedule playdates for her.” 

Chuckling, Leonard let his hand move to her soft, curly blonde hair. “You know, if you really don’t want to go out anymore… Why not just wait until your contract expires? You only have a few more months, you don’t have to renew it.” 

“What the hell will I do? I have no degree, no experience outside of fighting… I’d be fucked if I left.” Allison snapped, turning to glare at him. “We’d lose the money we use to pay our mortgage, and the Army’s housing help.” 

“You used to train recruits, you could be a personal trainer or something.” Shrugging, he looked away, avoiding her piercing stare. “I just figured, it’s bothering you so much.. It’s affecting you so much, is it worth it anymore?” 

“It pays the bills, doesn’t it?” 

“It won’t if you die.” 

There was a pause, and then, “You’ll get compensation.” 

“I don’t want compensation.” He snarled, sitting up to glare at her now. “I want my wife, alive and whole every day. Or as whole as you can be. I want my daughter to grow up with a mom, I don’t want to spend months on end worrying about where you are and if you’re alive.” 

He almost regretted snapping at her, after the look she gave him. The hurt in her eyes, the anger and passion behind them. He could see the fire raging on beneath her steely-blue eyes, but it died down quickly. 

“Fighting is all I know. Without that, what am I?”

“A wife. A mother.”

“I want to be more than that. I don’t want that to define who I am.”

“A singer. A lover. Someone who loves history, an intelligent woman who can motivate people into working out and getting fit.” 

“Ugh.” Looking away, she leaned her head back on her pillow and stared out at the window. “I don’t know, Leonard. I’ll think about it, but not tonight. I.. It’d be such a big change, and I wouldn’t know what to do…” 

Settling back down, Leonard nodded. “I can accept that.”

“I wasn’t looking for your acceptance.” 

“Fine. That sounds good to me. Better?” 

For the first time all night, Allison smiled. Truly smiled. It was one of those smiles that Leonard always told her were what made him fall in love with her. So bright it could light up a room. 

“In some ways.”

**Author's Note:**

> I had a choice when writing this. I have no idea if I'll ever fully get to it, but I've more or less decided to go AU style with this. As in, Allison lives. Hopefully I can have the muse to go into the AU a bit, and can jump back and forth.


End file.
